Explaining Hitler

I am fascinated with evil people like Hitler or Putin.

What explains evil? I have spent half a century trying to understand it and it keeps getting more and more complex. Just look around at all the killings, stabbings, bombings—the world has gone mad!

Is it childhood trauma? Yes, to a certain degree. Hitler’s father was very abusive yet his mother loved him; but allowed the beatings so he grew up with tremendous rages against women, gays, Jews, and authority.

One myth is that serial killers are people with low self-esteem; actually, it’s the very opposite—they have too much ego;… show more.

Ron Rosenbaum, an American journalist, is the original re-discoverer of the long-forgotten Munich Post. Explaining Hitler is both about the Nazi dictator and about humankind’s seemingly eternal quest to understand his power and appeal. Rosenbaum devotes a chapter to the Munich Post, calling the newspaper one of the first explainers of Hitler as it warned Germans about the perils he posed to democracy.